Sri Lanka tourist earnings up 26-pct to October

Dec 10, 2013 (LBO) – Sri Lanka has earned 996.2 million US dollars from tourism services in the ten months to October 2013, up 26 percent from a year earlier, data released by the Central Bank showed. The average stay has moved up 10.5 nights from 10 a year earlier, he said.

Tourism arrivals rose 16.8 percent to 904,015 in the same period.

Last year Sri Lanka was estimated to have earned 1,038 million US dollars from tourism up 25.1 percent from a year earlier with 1,005,605 tourists coming to the island.

This year Sri Lanka targeted 1.2 million tourists with an ambitious 1.5 billion US dollars in revenues.

Tourism is an export of services and is one of the factors that contribute to a country’s merchandise trade deficit when the received dollars are spent.

Don S Jayaweera, director general of the Sri Lanka’s tourist authority told a business forum in Colombo last month that the average spend per day by a tourist was 109 dollars this year up from 65 in 2009.

Search for:

About Us

LBO is the pioneer and leader in online business and economics news in Sri Lanka, LBO brings you a more comprehensive online news experience, integrating a host of interactive tools to keep you better informed.